1. Field of the Invention
The present relates generally to bowls for use in the preparation of food, and specifically to mixing bowl sets in which individual bowls nest within one another for space-efficient storage.
2. The Prior Art
Mixing bowls are commonly used in the preparation of food, whether for commercial or domestic consumption. Typically, such bowls are sold as a set, comprised of differently sized bowls. Also typically, the bowls are nestable, in that the smallest bowl fits into the next smallest, etc., such that the entire set may be stored inside the largest of the bowls. This facility enables the set to occupy the least amount of space in storage.
Generally, commercially available mixing bowls are conventionally molded of conventional plastic material. The bowls are of circular cross-section, with the sidewall of a bowl extending from a bottom surface to a top edge. The bowl is used to mix together various food ingredients, of liquid or granular form. Upon mixing the ingredients together, the combination is poured into a baking pan or the like. Accordingly, conventional bowls may provide a pourspout extending outwardly from one end. To extract the bowl contents by wa of the spout, the bowl rim is grasped at the end opposite the spout and the bowl is thereby tipped until the contents exit through the spout.
While available mixing bowl configurations are utilitarian, and function according to design, certain shortcomings prevent them from ideally satisfying all of a user s needs. First, grasping a full mixing bowl by the upper rim, in order to pour out the contents, is extremely arduous and requires substantial finger strength. Elderly, and those of lesser strength, therefore, find the use of such bowls cumbersome.
Simply the addition of a handle to the side of the bowl opposite the pourspout will not suffice since the handle would either impede, or render impossible, the nesting of one container within another. Similarly, an outward projecting pourspout can interfere with the nesting of conventional bowls as well. For this reason, nesting bowl sets are either nestable, in which case the bowls lack a pour spout and handle, or the sets are comprised of bowls which have a pourspout and handle, but which are not mutually nestable.